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29 January 2016
29
January
2016

The Rhodes Building at Oriel College

The Rhodes Building at Oriel College Oxford has recently undergone a complete refurbishment and conversion into student accommodation and lecture rooms. This building was originally designed by Basil Champneys (1842-1935) and was built in 1911 by will of Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902). The building is grade 2* listed and in the Oxford Central Conservation Area. The building now forms the north area of St Mary’s Quad of Oriel College and is opposite St Mary’s church.

Grade 2 Listed Building
Grade 2 Listed Building

The long passageway from Oxford High St to the internal quadrangle was sub-divided into three separate break-out areas by frameless glass screens. Although there was very little decorative glass in the scheme we were specified by the Architect – Marcus Beale London, following on from our previous frameless glazing project at the Pantin Library, also in Oriel College. The challenge on this project was to achieve very tight tolerances to the stone vaulted ceilings. We carried out a laser scan of the passageway and converted the data into linear shapes at the exact position of the screens. As you can imagine in a 105 year old building, the resulting glass shapes were anything but regular.

5mm Gap
5mm Gap

In practice, we achieved a gap between stone and glass of just 5mm. The two internal screens incorporated sliding glass doors, the external screen to quadrangle had a pivot door on concealed underfloor spring. All the metal fittings have been powder coated to a bronze RAL colour.

5mm Gap

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